Voodoo Child
by FluorescentCooties
Summary: Jack Sparrow makes a deal with a dangerous God in order to get a second chance at life. But what will happen when the Baron comes to collect his payment? A ressurection story, with Voodoo at side. Jack/Will and Elizabeth/O.C in later chapters.
1. Prologue

**Voodoo Child**

_By FluorescentCooties_

A.N: So… This is my first Pirates of the Caribbean fanfic, I am not an expert on the fandom, but I'm doing my best. This is a resurrection fanfic, and I suppose it is an A.U because, after this chapter, everyone will be in the present (but not in an high school).

Also, there will be Jack/Will slash.

English is not my mother language, and even though my beta, Alexis4, really helped me, there will probably be some mistakes. Let me know if you catch them.

POTC does not belong to me. Baron Samedi is not my creation (I did embellish him a bit), he is a deity of Vodoo, and you can read more about him and Vodoo at: en./wiki/BaronSamedi

Please, read and review.

**_Prologue – Dealing with Gods_**

He's a very old man.

Nobody expected him to survive through so many years, not even himself, but yet, here he is. A sober shadow of his young years, a man with skin dark from thousand suns, or maybe dark from the dirt he could never wash away. As the years passed, the trinkets had slowly disappeared from his hair, and now it was just a long white cascade that ran down to his hips. He has changed, he's not a colourful legend any more, his bones pain him when it rains and he feels old, used, tired.

Why did he have to live enough to see this?

_That was what you bargained for, wasn't it, Jackie Boy?_

William Turner's corpse is lying on the ground, together with his lifeless heart, quiet inside it's wooden box. Jack can't look away from it, from the body and face he dreamt about for all his life, from his one true love. Will had not age a day, still as young, as beautiful as ever, and the weight of age crawls into Jack's mind. What a terrible thing it is, to be old and in love. One of the multiple voices in his mind answers his thoughts, with a hoarse woman voice, saying that being in love is always tragic.

Magic stole and gave him years of life, but it had also given him company, those voices in his head, gods and spirits.

He could almost forgive Lizzie for everything, when he thought of her all alone in that island, kept away from the love of her life, without even the company of the voices of the dead. But he couldn't forgive her for having cancer, for dying, for being guilty of Will's death.

Jack couldn't understand how it could happen, how could a heart simply stop beating, just because it didn't want to do it any longer, just because it was no longer worth it. Elizabeth's grave was cold and lonely, and Jack could only imagine what Will had felt when he found out that she didn't managed to wait for him. He supposed it was the same feeling he was experiencing now, while looking at William's cold, dead body.

Only he would never be strong enough to just stop his heart from beating.

_Time to work, Jackie, you have a tribute to pay. Part of._

He took the shovel and started digging, his muscles tense under the black shirt, until he hit something hard. He's awfully strong for a hundred years old man, but, again, he's Captain Jack Sparrow, and that thought sends a small smile to his lips, but that soon dies out, as he remembers the task he has to perform.

First he uses the shovel to help him, but then he starts ripping the wood with his bare hands, until there's nothing left of the top of the coffin. He catches his breath for a moment. There is Elizabeth, untouched by decomposition (he cannot remember if he was the one to cast that spell), an ancient woman with pale limbs and a peaceful smile frozen on her face. For a second, and only for a second, he wonders if he's doing the right thing, taking Lizzie from her deadly sleep just to look for a miracle. A selfish man's miracle, a second chance.

But it's only for a second, and after that, he takes her corpse from the hole in the ground and carefully places it beside Will's. Jack is, again, an outsider to that relationship, and jealousy is a spike in his heart, a different sting from the physical ones that attack him. It's a sensation he often gets, when he thinks of Will and Elizabeth, and it hasn't disappeared with death.

_But they need you. Magic is a work of three._

Jack doesn't like the word magic. For him, it's a matter of tricks, simple tricks, and prayers to the right gods. He learnt it from Tia Dalma, at first, reading the ways of the world in the curves of her body, talking to higher powers through a shared smoking-pipe. After the plan started to form in his mind, he started to play with the tricks alone.

It was necessary.

He wanted a new chance, a new life, he wanted to make things right, and, deep down… He wanted Will. And after Will was cursed, this life wasn't enough for him to get what he wanted, it was obvious to him that he had to get a new one.

He's left arm is starting to go numb, and the stings of pain in his heart would be unbearable if he was a weaker man. No, he says to himself, not now, I can't die now.

_Then move faster, little old boy. Move faster._

The rum bottle is taken from the bag and is opened with a satisfying sound, the smell of it seems more intense than ever, sweet and hot. Jack gives a big swallow, and then soaks Will and Lizzie in the liquid. He needs two more bottles before he manages to get every piece of skin wet, and a third to soak himself in rum. The voices on his mind are silent now, and Jack doesn't mind, he can use a bit of peace and silence before he calls out the only one he needs. Of course, he's already here, but nothing is ever easy when one needs the help of Baron Samedi.

Sweets are next, balls of sugar, glued together by honey. Jack chews slowly on the sticky mix, trying not to gag with the flavour while he closes the hole where Elizabeth used to rest, making it look has it had never been moved in first place.

After he manages to swallow all the sweets and rum, he makes a circle of sugar and gunpowder around the three of them and lies down next to Will.

He can't feel his left side of the body, and a sigh of relief washes over him, as he realises, he made it. He's still not dead, he still has time. Slowly, he pulls a cigar, having to try three times before he manages to light it. The smoke fills his lungs and the magic of slow fire makes him cough. It takes less than a minute to rum catch on fire and less than that before they are swallowed by flames.

Jack screams in pain, as he feels himself leaving his old body behind, and all sensations to vanish.

"Is this dying?"

"No, it is not."

There's a man in front of him, in the middle of the flames, and his skin is as black as sin, too dark to be human, but still, there's a certain glow, a certain pulse beneath that darkness. His face is hidden behind a skull mask (or perhaps it is a skull), but there's a large cigar hanging between his teeth, and the holes where his eyes should have been are of a malevolent shade of purple that almost over-powers the light from the fire. Jack can't quite understand if the man is naked or in a tuxedo, and it doesn't matter. He wears white top hat.

He's Baron Samedi, and Jack would be proud of himself, if he wasn't so scared. He called upon the highest Voodoo God, the god of perversion and resurrection, of rum, sex, and slow fire. And he got answered.

"You have my sacrifice, boy. It's not a typical pirate thing to do, keeping a deal."

"I've stopped being a pirate a long time ago."

The laughter of the man fills the air with the smell of rum and ashes, and it makes Jack's essence shiver for a moment, almost disappearing into thin air.

"One can never stop being, Jack Sparrow."

"But one can try."

With a small, slow, shake of his skull the man agreed with Jack, making him feel stronger, more powerful. The fire is high, in the physical world, but it doesn't pass the circle of sugar and gunpowder. It burns less than the short silence of the dark man. When he talks again, his voice his filled with perverse laughter.

"She'll still be there, Sparrow. You tied her to both of you, forever. He can still choose the same path he did before."

"I know."

"Your debt with me will run deep."

"I'll pay it."

"Maybe you won't be able to pay, when the time comes."

Pain and then darkness, and then, an endless fall.

When the last forest star vanishes with the sun, the rain comes. It washes away the ashes and the shreds of a rum bottle. It leaves the simple tombstone glistening, the words "Elizabeth Turner" shining in a strange shade of purple, in the dim morning light.


	2. Chapter 1

**Voodoo Child**

_by FluorescentCooties_

**A. N: Hey there guys! How long has it been, two, three years? I'm a terrible person and I'm sorry, but since I got into college I haven't been able to write anymore. This is the first time in years I break author's block. **

**Anyway, since I've been out of it for so long I no longer have a beta and this chapter is not revised by anyone but me. So, expect a lot of grammar and construction mistakes since English is not my first language. If you find any mistakes, or even if you just want to give me constructive criticism, please leave a comment. (really, I didn't even proof read it)**

**I hope you have patience to bear this with me, even without three year pauses this would still be a slowly developing story. It's very plotty and historical and it demands a lot of research because I don't want to butcher the history of someone else's country. I apologize in advance if I do it.**

**Enjoy and leave a comment!**

_**Chapter 1 (Liz) – Finding the Pearl**_

Elizabeth Swann, from New York's Upper East Side, is in that place where one isn't exactly awake nor quite asleep, painfully aware that she's starting to fall into dreams. Only that I am Elizabeth, and I do not want to sleep.

After all this years of dreaming, I know that this would be easier if I just let myself slip into sleep, but I can't help to fight it as long as I can. I start to chant a mantra in my head, and try desperately to stay awake.

I'm Elizabeth Swann, and I'm in my bed, in New York. I'm Elizabeth Swan, and I'm in my bed, in New York. I'm…

I'm Elizabeth Turner and Jack Sparrow, lying side by side on the warm sand of a lonely island, hot rum running down our throats. I'm William Turner, collecting the souls of those lost at sea, longing for my beloved wife.

_I am we._

_Two of us are comfortably side-by-side, Jack and Elizabeth. We dance and laugh but deep down we all know that this is just a façade for the darkness inside. Sometimes, pretending we're happy is what we need. He comes to the island to keep her company, when the world becomes too overwhelming for him and he needs some peace. She's the only one that understands how lost and lonely he feels, and she's the only one who is always there, ready to pretend for him._

_It takes the whole evening and part of the night to get them drunk enough to start talking. It's a full moon, a perfect night for lovers, and that idea pains us all, but Lizzie especially, for being separated from the love of her life hasn't been easy. So, drunk on rum and sorrow, it's her who starts talking tonight._

_Missing Will is more than what she thinks she can handle, and it's killing her. She wants to talk about love, she wants to forget all about gods and promises, forget all about the little boy with dark eyes and honey coloured hair who bears the name of a father he has never known._

"_Have you ever been in love, Jack?" – she asks softly into the night sky._

"_Aye." – he drinks some more rum, and we all silently wait for him to talk again – "A terrible stupid thing, love is."_

"_Why does it have to be that way?" – we ask in a whisper. Elizabeth knows the answer but we just want Jack to talk. The night is dark and scary when we're silent._

"_Let me tell you a story, Lizzie. A pretty story." – his speech is slurred, but we don't mind, Jack has always been a storyteller – "In the old times, there was a nymph, called Salmacis. She was a beautiful lass, she was, fair skin, long hair, pretty curves, all a nymph should be. Salmacis had never met a man that…sparkled her desire, savvy? She was just a lazy forest nymph, until the day she saw him." – he makes a dramatic pause – "Hermaphroditus, the son of the goddess of love and the god of thieves, was walking in the forest, unaware of the passion he had awoken inside Salmacis. She ran to him, and tried to seduce him, but, alas, he didn't want her. She wasn't too discreet and nice to start with, being used to charm hunters and fauns, but he just didn't want her at all. He wouldn't return her feelings not even if she was a friggin' goddess herself. You savvy?" – he looks right inside our souls, trying to make us understand. Then the moment passes and he continues – "So, Hermaphroditus runs away and thinks he got rid of our girl, and he enters a lake, goes for a swim. But Salmacis is a nymph, and she is in tune with everything in the nature, she's the river and the trees, she's part of it all, he can't run away. And she kisses him and hugs him, and holds him while he tries to fight her and get her off. She holds him so close and tight, not caring for the pain he's making her feel, and then she cries 'Make us one, please.'"_

_There's a long pause before he continues and finishes his story._

"_And, for once, the gods hear her request, and Salmacis and Hermaphroditus are united as one perfect being, together forever."_

"_What are you going to do, Jack?" – Elizabeth says, slowly, feeling the power of the story sobering her up._

"_I'll make the gods hear me."_

_The following morning, we wake up tangled in each other, clothes damp and heads pounding. Elizabeth feeds her son, who looks at Uncle Jack in awe. He wants to be a pirate when he grows up, with all the passion of a six year old boy. _

_We are Elizabeth Turner, left behind by lover and friend. We are William Turner, sailing the seven seas on a cursed ship. The child looks on as we disappear into the horizon, never looking back._

_It's the last time we see Jack Sparrow._

I awake up, startled, and immediately reach out for the notebook and pen that are in my bedside table.

I hate this.

My hand moves, filling the blank page with words that are not mine and whose meaning I can't fully understand. Someone else, inside of me, is commanding my hand, someone else is writing. The real me is sleeping somewhere inside and she is subdued and terrified.

I am afraid that I'll never regain control of my actions. I'm afraid they'll keep me trapped inside myself forever...

Jack's thoughts are drowning me, and they're all Will. Will smiling at the glistening sea, Will crying for Elizabeth, Will's dead face, and oh-please Will, look at me like that, just once, like you look at her... Please Will, let me touch you and take the pain away, I promise I will never leave, we are made of the sea water and mischief, thick as thieves... If I die fighting next to you, I'll die happy... Make this moment last forever, his back against mine, two of us against the world...

I'm Elizabeth Swann, I've lived in New York all my life. I don't know any Jack Sparrow or Will Turner. I'm Elizabeth Swann.

I breath through the panic, and chant my mantra until the last shreds of sleep vanish and, slowly, I stop writing. My breath is quick and shallow, and I need a few moments before I manage to turn the lights on and look around, half expecting to see a pirate ship or a tropical island.

When all I can see is a big, silky, and pink bedroom I sigh in relief. Like a blind woman, I run my hands along my hair and my face, making sure they're still the same.

Medium height, straight-ish, a sweaty messy. It's definitively my hair.

Slightly crooked nose from a skiing fall. Check.

My lips are as normal and un-interesting as I remember them, I have all my teeth and none of them feels golden.

Happiness rushes through my veins as I finish my exam and relax, letting myself submerge in the sea of pink luxury that is my bed. Through the bulletproof windows, the New York traffic still sweeps in. It's comforting, hearing a modern noise.

Even if I tried to go to sleep again, I couldn't, so I try to think about easy, normal life things. I think about the sun, how it will rise soon and shine between the heavy curtains. I think about my father, away for business in his homeland, and the maid who will soon come to wake me up and give me the newspaper.

I give up on trying to get any more sleep and go take a shower, letting the hot water wash away the physical reminders of the dream.

When I leave the bathroom followed by a thick cherry-smelling fog, I already forgot anything from the dream. Was it something about mythology? It's long gone from my mind, the way dreams usually tend to fade and disappear when real life takes over.

The alarm clock tells me that it's five in the morning, but my stomach insists that I am starved. I'm the only one at home, but I still try to be quiet as I make my way to the kitchen barefooted.

Christina, our cook, always leaves extra pancake bater in the fridge so that me and my father can feel independent without any actual cooking involved. The bater hisses and pops when it hits the sizzling oil on the pan. I'm in the process of trying to flip the pancake when I hear something that makes me tense up and stop what I'm doing.

There's a key in the door. Of course that, logically, I know that's impossible. My father is in Russia, finalizing a gas deal that's going to make us even more obscenely rich. It's still too early for the staff to arrive and Nate is...

I turn around so quickly that a half burnt pancake flys out the pan and my head spins. As soon as I see green eyes and black curls I'm running out the kitchen and into strong arms and familiar scent.

"Nate! What are you doing here... You're only supposed to come back in February... You fucking idiot!" - I'm laughing and crying at the same time, my legs already wrapped around his waist and his strong hands in the small of my back.

"That's no way to say hi to your boyfriend..." - he doesn't have time to continue talking, since I'm kissing the air out of his lungs and tracing his face with my fingertips, trying to make sure that he is here, and now, with me... - "Beth, Beth, please, you have to stop honey..." - no chance in hell, I think, my mouth attached to his neck - "Baby, oh, please stop" - not happening - "Beth, stop, I found it."

He managed to physically push me away from his neck, clearly trying to keep control, but there was no need for that as he has already shocked the libido out of me. There's no sounds coming of my mouth, but I cover it with my hands anyway. Nate's blinding smile comes back as he takes off his coat and drops his backpack.

"Honey, please say something. I found it, baby, we found it. It was exactly where you said, the whole fucking ship, the most wonderful thing you'll ever see in your life..."

Tears are streaming down my face, all the dreams I've ever had coming back and flooding my brain and still I come closer to the table, where Nate is opening his laptop and showing me pictures, such beautiful pictures of a ship in the middle of vegetation and how did it even get there? But there it was, there it was... The Pearl.

"It's intact, nobody understands how the fuck it got there, the geo guys didn't find any evidence of soil changes drastic enough to explain a fucking ship in the middle of a fucking island..."

Will, Will dying and Jack crazy with pain, going back to the Pearl, and how long has it been since Jack cared with little things like the fact that you're not supposed to sail on land? Poor loveless Jack, three corpses and the only thing that has ever loved him back, his Pearl, his ocean, his horizon... Why can't Elizabeth stop crying?

"Everything was inside, no one has touched it since it's owner left, it's the biggest thing we ever had. Fuck that, it's bigger than the Titanic, and even that looks like a piece of shit next to this. It's like they went to grab a coffee three centuries ago and never came back. No decay, no bugs, no plants. Only dust. It's life of a pirate, interrupted."

Finally Nate stops talking and his blue eyes focus on me. He doesn't say a word, instead he closes the distance between us and holds me, supporting the weight of my body while my knees give out under me.

"Shhh, little honey... Isn't this what you wanted, what we wanted?"

I can only nod, even though I'm not sure he feels it, with my face crushed against his chest. He is right, this is everything we have always wanted. All those sleepless nights in college, studying people history despised and cinema loved to explore. Until I found the guy who was always taking the books I wanted from the library before I could get to them, what a stupid way to try to get a date with me, I would've gone anyway if he just asked. He didn't even like pirates, and he was older, but by the third date he was already as taken with the subject as he was with me.

And even before that, there was a little girl who had strange dreams and no explanation for them until she went to Central Park with her nanny and met a boy with a name that didn't quite fit. The nanny went to buy an ice cream and when she tried to find me I was already playing pirate and happier than I had ever been and he had no idea but he was Will, Will, Will... No, I can't go there. After all this years, Bill never realized that even though he is himself, he is also the memory of someone else. The Pearl will not change that.

I stop snivelling, with the most dignity I can muster, and unglue my face from Nate's completely wet shirt.

"Yes, it's everything I could ever want. I'm just so happy." - I manage to unglue my face from his completely wet shirt - "Shit, it is real, isn't it?"

"As real as it gets, baby."

"What are we even going to do with it? All this knowledge, all this..." - I struggle for a better word, something that encompasses all I want to say - "All this stuff."

Graphics open before my eyes as Nate shows me everything there is to know about this ship, this miracle lost in the Nature.

"For starters, we're going to get filthy rich." - I wrinkle my nose, like I smelled something foul, the Pearl is not about money - "Well, little rich girl, don't worry, there's something for you too. They're going to bring the whole thing to New York, it's going to stay at the Met. Art and pirates and a whole partnership with the Smithsonian, it's going to be insane."

My mouth hangs open after that, the sheer impossibility of bringing a whole ship and its contents to New York, only to stay at a museum.

"What are they thinking? Will it survive the trip?" - I can see by the charts that the ship could even sail to New York, if they wanted it too. It was ridiculous that everybody was accepting this level of conservation and not even asking themselves how it was possible, when it clearly wasn't. - "Why do they even want it?"

A new photo opens and the breath catches in my throat. Entire books, filled with a tiny, flowy handwriting. Hidden in my room I have dozens of notebooks filled with this exact handwriting.

Now, it all falls into pieces. The way that Old Elizabeth and Old Will's handwriting always fit the status quo of the time they lived in, and Jack's didn't. It's not just his actual handwriting, which is legible but with classic marks of someone that writes too much and too quickly, it's mostly the way he expresses himself. He's collected and organized and completely different from the pirate persona that turned a legend, almost like all his strange ways are a cover for the intelligent man inside.

And here is the explanation. Nate zooms in on the picture and I can read the title "The Life and Times of Captain Jack Sparrow". Typical Jack, writing a ten volume account of his own adventures and storing it in a magic pirate ship.

"What does Jack have to do with it?" - I ask, hoarse voice.

"Technically, the AHA would still want it, they're claiming it is an important part of American history, even though it's kind of bullshit, if we go there it actually belongs to the British..." - he trails off until I pinch his arm and force him to focus again - "Anyway... The minute they saw the books, they went crazy. It's a complete account of everything of the time. Politics, ships, life as a pirate, life with other pirates, it explains everything. Jack Sparrow is going to change the way we study the sixteenth century, no more of that Hollywood bullshit, now we have a real historical document to analyse. It's legendary, Beth, and we are right in the middle of it."

"Well, yeah, at least you are." - I bitterly reply even though it's not his fault that I had to stay in New York while he went to discover my ship. - "Some of us have been at home, working on their final thesis about feminism and piracy. It's going to change the face of History, you'll see. Jack has jack on this."

He laughs at my pout and terrible pun. But underneath the sarcasm and terrible sense of humour, I really am jealous of him. This should be my achievement, it was me who told him about the island with a ship on it, it was me who convinced him that I was not crazy, that it was a hunch and sometimes people should follow their instincts, or their girlfriend's instincts, for all that matter. In the end, there he was agreeing with my father that I was too young to go and should be concentrating in finishing my studies.

Afterwards he was crying in my shoulder, because my father can be awfully persuasive when he doesn't want his little girl in danger, and if the total funding wasn't enough, there were always bodyguards with enough persuasion to break a rock. And Nate was no rock, so I forgave him.

Could I still forgive him now that he really found the Pearl and saw it first?

"No, _we_ are." - he continued talking - "I told them that if there was one person who really understood this ship, that person was you. They agreed to let you curate the exhibition, and help with the moving process." - my smile is ripping my face apart and I don't care, yeah, I think I can forgive him - "They still have to negotiate with the local government, and the Smithsonian is pissed because they think it should go to Washington, but still. The moment it comes to New York, it's all yours. Just make sure that you graduate till then so it will be easier to explain why you are the expert."

There are tears in my eyes again, of pure unadulterated joy, as I leap of the chair and hug him tightly.

"I've never loved you more than right now." - I whisper in his ear and feel his smile against my shoulder.

"Well, wait till I start making pancakes."


End file.
